It was another question that had to do with his recollections of Kirk Gibson’s Hollywood-like feat in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

Vin Scully admitted it was the “most theatrical home run” he had ever called. “Also the most surprising,” he added.

But then the Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster had one more confession to make to the 50-some members of the media who had crowded into the interview room on the bottom floor of Dodger Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

“I do remember — it’s wasn’t a prayer exactly — but I remember saying, ‘Dear God, let him hit the ball. Don’t let him strike out. He’s had such a big year and meant so much, and this is the national stage. A good fly ball would be great.’

“And then when he hit the home run … I had a lot of trouble sitting down because of so much nervous energy. But that gave me a moment — where it came from, God must have sent it to me … ‘In the year of the improbable …’”

Al Michaels wonders if we believe in miracles. But it’s not impossible that this was another act of divine intervention, somehow connected to Scully’s belief in a higher power.

God only knows.

Mass appeal

There’s a Scully-narrated commercial that SportsNet LA will occasionally air, his words overlaid on video of him gazing out of his press box booth and strolling across the outfield grass.

“When I walk inside the walls of cathedral-like Dodger Stadium, I hear the echoes of stories that brought crowds to their feet … and let’s face it, even tears to the eyes of the faithful,” he says.

In truth, Dodger Stadium does become very cathedral-like, albeit on a much smaller scale, every Sunday morning before a home game.

Inside that very same room where Scully told story after story during a final group Q-and-A session on Saturday, he will join some Dodger players, coaches and stadium employees in attending a Catholic Mass just hours before he goes to the broadcast booth for the final time in his 67-season career.

Amidst all the places Scully has been pulled this week, he remains drawn to the Mass. It has helped him get through some personal tragedies in his life, as well as a place to celebrate and be thankful for all he has received.

A white altar cloth will cover the long table where Dave Roberts holds his postgame press conference, and a visiting priest will be invited by Catholic Athletes for Christ organization to celebrate.

Scully takes his seat in the front row, often next to his wife, Sandi. A chair to his right is left vacant and a Dodgers jacket is draped across the back. It is there to remember Billy DeLury, the former team traveling secretary who traveled from Brooklyn to Los Angeles with Scully in 1958 and died at age 81 just before the 2015 season began.

And when it comes to the Bible readings, Scully will often volunteer to act as the lector.

Really, if you want to make God smile, let him hear Scully read the Book of Wisdom. Chapter and verse.

A story about Scully in the October edition of the Catholic Digest asked him if he, because of his religious beliefs, felt he already had one foot in heaven.

“I don’t feel like I have one foot in heaven,” he said, “but I think I can see it from here, especially at Mass.”

When searching for all the possible reasons why Scully is so genuinely humble, gracious and grateful, he will circle back to his upbringing in an Irish Catholic home, attending Catholic schools where the nuns tried to shake him of his habit of writing with his left hand (“they thought it would make me stutter,” he said), going to the Jesuit-taught all-boys Fordham Prep School in the Bronx and then graduating from Fordham University in the Bronx.

“God has been incredibly kind to allow me to be in the position to watch and to broadcast all these somewhat monumental events,” Scully, who regularly attends Mass at St. Jude the Apostle Church in Westlake Village, said earlier this week. “I’m really filled with thanksgiving and the fact that I’ve been given such a chance to view. But none of those are my achievements; I just happened to be there. … I know some people won’t understand it, but I think it has been God’s generosity to put me in these places and let me enjoy it.”

He has also said recently: “All I know is that I’m profoundly humbled and grateful to the Lord for the gift of being able to cover baseball for practically my whole adult life. When the time comes to sign off for good, I’ll look back with joy.”

A humble servant

The members of the media wouldn’t leave Saturday until told they had to. Scully told story after story, and the half-hour allotted time started to go past 45 minutes, and then closer to an hour.

How did he feel on Friday night after his appreciation ceremony? “You’ve heard about being on Mt. Olympus? I was five feet above that,” Scully admitted.

How do you think you’ll feel on the Monday after your last game? “Maybe I’ll take my watch off and just put it in the drawer,” he guessed.

And then, as the Dodgers’ PR people decided it was time for Scully to go back to the Vin Scully Press Box and finish preparing for Saturday night’s game, everyone in the room gave him a standing ovation.

Scully blushed. Again.

Orel Hershiser, the former Dodgers pitcher and World Series hero who was known for his religious conviction giving him strength during the rough-and-tumble 1988 playoff run, has said in SportsNet L.A. commercial spots: “He will remind us about who we are supposed to be, still. Because that’s what he taught us … how to be gentlemen. How to have integrity. He taught us how to hold this place up in the highest esteem and live your life accordingly. That’s what I’ll miss, that example.”

It reminds us of a story he told about himself on the air earlier this season — a moment during his first year, 1950, when leaving Ebbets Field on a rainy Saturday afternoon after the Dodgers played the St. Louis Cardinals.

“There were hundreds of kids running toward me with paper wanting an autograph,” he said. “I was starting to write my name on a piece the paper, and way in the back, a kid hollered, ‘Who is it?’ And the kid in the front said, ‘Vin … uh …. Scully?’ And the kid in the back yelled, ‘He’s nobody!’ And the 500 kids walked away.”

Scully laughed, surmising that since he was wearing a rain coat and hat and had red hair, the kids must have thought he was Red Schoendienst.

“I never forgot that,” said Scully. “And you know what? He was right. Who the heck was I?”

Today, Scully says he identifies as someone who wants to be remembered not as a sportscaster, but “the very normal guy that I am. I just want to be remembered as a good man, an honest man, and one who lived up to his own beliefs.”

We believe that’s what will happen. The answer to our prayers, as well as his.

Tom Hoffarth is a freelancer. He had been with the Daily News/Southern California News Group since 1992 as a general assignment sports reporter, columnist and specialist in the sports media. He has been honored by the Associated Press for sports columnists and honored by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association for his career work. His favorite sportscaster of all time: Vin Scully, for professional and personal reasons. He considers watching Zenyatta win the Breeders' Cup 2009 Classic to be the most memorable sporting event he has covered in his career. Go figure that.

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